ISLAMABAD: The case of alleged financial corruption in funds of Pakistan Tehreek-i-Insaf (PTI) took a new turn after new ‘evidence’ was presented to the Election Commission of Pakistan (ECP) suggesting that $2.3 million was transferred to PTI bank accounts in 2013 by people and companies from the US.

The Election Commission headed by Chief Election Commissioner Justice retired Sardar Muhammad Raza Khan hearing the case decided on Tuesday to scrutinise annual statements of assets of PTI to see if the amount was shown in the statements or otherwise.

In case the statements reflect the amount, further inquiry will be held to see if the same was received from foreigners and companies in the US.

A PTI founding member and former central information secretary Akbar S. Babar had filed a petition alleging financial corruption and violation of laws in handling of PTI funds.

During the hearing, the PTI lawyer questioned the authenticity of the evidence presented to the ECP, particularly with regard to documents of the US Department of Justice, which showed over $2 million being transferred to the PTI accounts in Pakistan from the US.

The petitioner’s counsel, Ahmed Hasan, said that the evidence presented was authentic and could be accessed by anyone on the internet from the US Department of Justice’s website. He also argued that under the new law of evidence, documents downloaded from official websites could be presented as evidence in a court of law.

The PTI’s counsel refused to acknowledge the Special Audit Report authorised by Imran Khan in March 2013 as an ‘audit report’. He said it was merely an investigation report and argued that the PTI’s annual statements of assets submitted with the Election Commission were accurate and there was no concealment of funds.

The counsel for the petitioner claimed that the amount of over $2 million was illegally transferred to the PTI accounts from the US and the ECP was authorised to confiscate all funds received illegally.

He said that the entire scope of concealment and misappropriation of funds would come to light once a complete forensic audit of all PTI accounts was carried out.

Published in Dawn March 18th , 2015

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